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Education NewsTue, 02 May 2017 19:05:04 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.2Voucher Program in Ohio Shows Mixed Results, Study Sayshttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/voucher-program-in-ohio-shows-mixed-results-study-says/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/voucher-program-in-ohio-shows-mixed-results-study-says/#commentsSat, 16 Jul 2016 12:00:52 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=281028In Ohio, some students who use vouchers to attend private schools have been found to have severe drops in their achievement. But the broader picture is anything but bleak, as a study by the Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, discovered that public schools improved from the competitive pressure of students using vouchers. Author David Figlio, […]

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Grace Smith

In Ohio, some students who use vouchers to attend private schools have been found to have severe drops in their achievement. But the broader picture is anything but bleak, as a study by the Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, discovered that public schools improved from the competitive pressure of students using vouchers.

Author David Figlio, a professor of education, social policy, and economics at Northwestern University, said that overall, the program was positive since even more students were impacted by the “competitive effect” than the number of pupils who used the vouchers.

Research has found that programs which allow young people to attend private schools using public funds had little or no bearing, or small positive effects, on test results. But now, two Louisiana studies, one in Indiana, and the recent Ohio research shows that vouchers can reduce achievement among the pupils who use them.

School choice advocates are particularly interested in finding out why the reports are producing negative results. Matt Barnum, reporting for The 74 Million, offers some possible explanations. Professor Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas argues that standardized test scores are weak measures of school quality. Greene points out that studies connected to charter schools have shown gains in achievement without increases in educational accomplishment.

There is some research that says vouchers increase graduation rates; some that found that vouchers have no influence on college enrollment, graduation rates, or on students overall; and some that found a positive effect with African-American students.

Figlio says test scores are just one of many predictors of “things we care about.”

Another hypothesis is that standardized tests are based on state standards, which can be a disadvantage for private schools that can use curricula that are not aligned directly to state criteria. The downside of this theory is that the result can be that teachers begin to “teach to the tests.”

Other speculation includes that the overly complicated regulation on choosing students who receive vouchers may deter private schools from accepting voucher pupils; the improvement in traditional schools, especially on standardized test scores, keeps students enrolled where they are; and the under-regulation of private schools may cause a lack of transparency in their accountability.

WCBE Public Radio and the Associated Press report that Fordham Institute Vice President Chad Aldis says the review only studied math and reading scores and did not investigate the private schools the voucher kids attended. The study also only looked at students who remained in the highest-performing failing schools.

“So we don’t know what happens to kids who attend the very worst public schools that are eligible for EdChoice, and then we also don’t know what’s different in the private schools that is generating lower test results.”

The Ohio Department of Education said in a press release that competition was always good for schools.

The Associated Press states the research team reviewed information from the 2003-2004 to 2012-2013 school year test scores. They also compared pupils who used vouchers given by Ohio’s $94.6 million EdChoice program with peers who stayed in “voucher-eligible” public schools.

According to the research, students who qualified for vouchers but stayed in their public schools attained “modest” increases in achievement possibly because of the “competition effect.”

“For years, voucher critics have argued that students staying in public schools were hurt by voucher programs,” said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy at the think tank. “It’s heartening to see that healthy competition can improve achievement.”

Catherine Candisky of The Columbus Dispatch reports that the study found that:

“Those students, on average, who move to private schools under the EdChoice program tend to perform considerably worse than observationally similar students who remained in public schools.”

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Grace Smith

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/voucher-program-in-ohio-shows-mixed-results-study-says/feed/0Working Paper Finds Voucher Programs Effective Globallyhttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/working-paper-finds-voucher-programs-effective-globally/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/working-paper-finds-voucher-programs-effective-globally/#commentsSun, 15 May 2016 12:00:36 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=277894The College of Education & Health Professions at the University of Arkansas has released a report titled “The Participant Effects of Private School Vouchers across the Globe” as part of a working paper series. The paper begins by introducing school voucher programs to readers who may be unfamiliar with the term. Voucher programs (also known […]

The College of Education & Health Professions at the University of Arkansas has released a report titled “The Participant Effects of Private School Vouchers across the Globe” as part of a working paper series.

The paper begins by introducing school voucher programs to readers who may be unfamiliar with the term. Voucher programs (also known as opportunity scholarships) pay for students to attend a private school of their choice, with these vouchers usually funded by the government. These types of programs have been initiated worldwide.

Typically, voucher programs are viewed as a means to increase the achievement level and satisfaction of individual students, while at the same time spurring competitive pressure in the education sector to encourage other schools’ improvement.

There have been many studies conducted on school vouchers, but no other study has performed what the working paper calls a “meta-analysis” of the international randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluate the achievement effects of vouchers.

Researchers at the College of Education identified 9,443 potential studies, 19 of which were ultimately included in the report. These 19 studies represent 11 different voucher programs. The study argues that all previous studies of voucher programs provide inadequate results to determine whether students are helped or harmed academically by access to private school choice.

The results of the study show that voucher programs globally tend to impact students’ test scores positiviely, particularly in countries where there is a large gap between private and public school quality. Thus, voucher programs tend to be more successful where underprivileged students, who would otherwise lack access to a high-quality private school, use them to avoid low-quality public education. These kind of scenarios are often experienced in poorer, less developed countries of the Global South.

The researchers concluded by offering several policy recommendations. They found that publicly-funded voucher programs show larger positive effects than privately-funded programs. Often, publicly-funded voucher programs are of significantly greater value because they cover the full cost of educating a child. Students who use publicly-funded vouchers have the means to stay in private school long enough to realize the benefits of the voucher.

Interestingly, the researchers also suggest that publicly-funded voucher programs are subject to more and better regulation than privately financed voucher programs because public authorities have a vested interest in ensuring the quality of publicly-funded programs and can be held responsible for quality control.

Vouchers also tend to be cost effective because, for a fraction of the cost, they generate achievement outcomes that are as good or better than those generated by traditional public schools. Parents and students tend to feel more personally fulfilled when they are able to exercise some control over schooling, and vouchers facilitate that autonomy.

The goal of the University of Arkansas’s working paper series is intended to disseminate the latest findings on education research. The papers have yet to be peer-reviewed, but they hope to encourage the discussion and input of educators and policymakers nationwide before being submitted to a journal.

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/working-paper-finds-voucher-programs-effective-globally/feed/0House Passes Legislation to Extend DC Voucher Program to 2021http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/house-passes-legislation-to-extend-dc-voucher-program-to-2021/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/house-passes-legislation-to-extend-dc-voucher-program-to-2021/#commentsSun, 08 May 2016 14:00:16 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=277472House Republicans have passed legislation that would extend the Washington, DC school voucher program to 2021. The program is currently the only federally funded, private school voucher program available for K-12 students. Passing on a 224-181 vote, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Reauthorization Act (SOAR), will require $60 million each year to be split equally between the […]

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Kristin Decarr

House Republicans have passed legislation that would extend the Washington, DC school voucher program to 2021. The program is currently the only federally funded, private school voucher program available for K-12 students.

Passing on a 224-181 vote, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Reauthorization Act (SOAR), will require $60 million each year to be split equally between the voucher program, public charter schools, and traditional public schools located within the District.

Some local DC leaders have criticized the program, arguing that it takes money and resources, as well as students, away from the public school system. However, because federal funding for public schools is attached to the legislation, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and various council members have expressed their support for it, writing a letter to congressional leaders in March that said a reauthorization of the act is “critical to the gains that the District’s public education system has seen.”

The voucher program runs on the idea that students at all income levels should have the same access to all types of education, not just the public school system. Low-income families who qualify are given vouchers that they are then able to use at the private school of their choice. In all, 1,442 students used vouchers in the 2014-15 school year in order to help pay the tuition at 47 local private schools. Religious schools accounted for 80% of those vouchers, fueling the argument from critics that the vouchers are funding religious education.

“Public schools have to take everyone,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who is a former public school teacher, said in an interview. “I didn’t have a choice over which students I got assigned. … What we are essentially allowing is for private schools to take public money and not to have to take everybody.”

Similar legislation was introduced last fall by former House Speaker John Boehner, who was looking to extend the program. While that legislation passed the House, it did not make it passed the Senate, where it continues to sit. His bill required participating private schools to be accredited within five years. Meanwhile, the new bill says they must be accredited now, writes Perry Stein for The Washington Post.

Supporters of the new legislation are continuously pointing to research suggesting that 90% of voucher students graduate from high school, with close to the same percentage enrolling in some sort of higher education. However, federal studies do not agree, saying that the program does not in fact lead to statistically significant academic gains. At the same time, the Obama administration has worked to shut down the program.

“You have some families here that are in real dire straits,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a supporter of the bill. “There is a big D.C. bureaucracy that is not living up to expectations. This program is a life line.”

The new bill would also require some of the voucher students to take the same standardized tests in math and reading that students in public schools take, which would allow the federal government to compare the academic performance of each set of students.

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Kristin Decarr

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/house-passes-legislation-to-extend-dc-voucher-program-to-2021/feed/0School Voucher Program Students Commit Fewer Crimes, Study Suggestshttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/school-voucher-program-students-commit-fewer-crimes-study-suggests/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/school-voucher-program-students-commit-fewer-crimes-study-suggests/#commentsThu, 10 Mar 2016 20:00:15 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=274807Researchers at the University of Arkansas performed an evaluation of a Milwaukee school voucher program, finding that students who make use of the program in order to enroll in private high schools are less likely to commit crimes than peers who attended public high schools. The results of the analysis are included in the paper, “The […]

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Kristin Decarr

Researchers at the University of Arkansas performed an evaluation of a Milwaukee school voucher program, finding that students who make use of the program in order to enroll in private high schools are less likely to commit crimes than peers who attended public high schools.

The results of the analysis are included in the paper, “The School Choice Voucher: A ‘Get Out of Jail’ Card?” written by Corey DeAngelis, a doctoral student in education policy, and Patrick J. Wolf, who holds the Twenty-First Century Chair in School Choice. The paper was presented by the pair at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Several studies taking a closer look at the Milwaukee program conducted at the University of Arkansas have previously been directed by Wolf for the School Choice Demonstration Project. The studies discussed a variety of topics, including student achievement, high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, promotion of civic values, and parental satisfaction.

The paper also states that schools can be considered to be social institutions that work to improve upon the non-cognitive skills of students. Once combined with academic achievement, these skills can help students attain a better life outcome, which can then be measured by lifetime earnings, employment, and citizenship. The current study analyzes citizenship through adult criminal activity.

Data was taken from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to complete the first analysis of the effect of a private school choice program on the criminal behavior of young adults. Milwaukee is the first to create an urban publicly funded tuition voucher system, which was implemented in 1990. The district currently enrolls over 27,000 students at more than 110 private schools.

Students who use vouchers were matched for the study with students at public high schools through data concerning grade, neighborhood, race, gender, English language learner status, and math and reading tests. Family characteristics such as income, family composition, and parental education were all controlled for. The pair made use of the Wisconsin Court System Circuit Court Access system to find cases involving former students who had previously been in the program for a longitudinal study between 2006 and 2011, involving students who were 22 to 25 years old during the criminal database search.

Results of that study suggested that those students who used a voucher to attend a private high school were less likely to commit a misdemeanor by the time they were young adults by five to seven percentage points, less likely to commit a felon by three percentage points, and less likely to be accused of any crime by anywhere between five and 12 percentage points.

The effects of the program were found to be more clear for men, who the researchers say tend to commit more crimes than women.

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Kristin Decarr

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/school-voucher-program-students-commit-fewer-crimes-study-suggests/feed/0Louisiana Voucher Program Students Struggle on Math, Study Showshttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/louisiana-voucher-program-students-struggle-on-math-study-shows/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/louisiana-voucher-program-students-struggle-on-math-study-shows/#commentsFri, 26 Feb 2016 18:00:34 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=274061Louisiana’s private school voucher program has shown widely-varying results in a study suggesting that students in the program scored substantially lower than public school students in math during the first year of the plan. Researchers at Tulane University stated in the report that students did better on math performance in their second year of the program, but were […]

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Grace Smith

Louisiana’s private school voucher program has shown widely-varying results in a study suggesting that students in the program scored substantially lower than public school students in math during the first year of the plan.

Researchers at Tulane University stated in the report that students did better on math performance in their second year of the program, but were still below their public school peers, reports the Associated Press.

The results of the study were confined to grades three through six, but a majority of students enter the voucher program at other grade levels. The researchers added that the examination did not reveal whether the findings would be the same for students who joined the plan the first year they began school in kindergarten.

The program was established to provide tuition for some low- or moderate- income students whose only choice would have been to attend low-performing schools. First a pilot program in New Orleans, the plan was extended across the state in 2012 by lawmakers based on a push by former Gov. Bobby Jindal.

There are currently over 7,000 young people involved in the project. While Jindal and other supporters saw the program as a way for students to leave poor schools, opponents have asked how effective the vouchers are and if the diverted money is harming public schools that are in need of funding.

The Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane and the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas jointly released the study. The researchers said reading scores were lower for voucher-school children than the scores of their public school counterparts, but not as dramatically as math scores.

The focus of the report was on students who had attended public schools and took 2011-2012 state standardized tests before they enrolled in the voucher program in 2012-2013 school year. The program was formerly known as the Louisiana Scholarship Program.

“Our estimates indicate that an LSP scholarship user who was performing at roughly the 50th percentile at baseline fell 24 percentile points below their control group counterparts,” the report said. The gap narrowed to 13 percentile points in math in the second year. There was an eight-point difference in reading the first year but reading scores improved in the second year to a point where they were not significantly different, statistically, from the control group, the report said.

The Louisiana voucher program is the fifth-largest in the country, writes Lauren Camera for US News and World Report. But another paper published two months ago found that voucher-school students had lowered math, social studies, reading, and science scores. The possibility of a student achieving a failing score grew by 24% to 50%.

Other states are considering similar programs, and the private school scholarship sector is becoming a reality in states across the nation. Advocates of the programs say the number of students using vouchers rose by 130% since 2008-2009.

The voucher program in Louisiana extends private school options to students enrolled in a school graded C, D, or F, or who are beginning kindergarten. Voucher kids take the same state exams as their peers in public schools, says The Times-Picayune’s Danielle Dreilinger.

Some of the explanations put forth to account for these unprecedented results include that private schools might not have been equipped to educate kids from disadvantaged families; that schools’ curricula might not have been the same as the state’s mathematics standards; Louisiana’s program being larger than programs that have experienced positive results but were smaller; and that more expensive and prestigious private schools might have had a better chance of providing more diverse support for kids at risk often do not accept vouchers.

Will Sentell of The Advocate said the results are sure to have an impact on debates that will take place during the regular 2016 legislative session. The deliberations will likely concern putting restrictions on the voucher program, which costs the state roughly $42 million a year.

“We must remember all scholarship program students previously attended failing and underperforming schools,” said Ann Duplessis, president of the pro-voucher group Louisiana Federation for Children and a former state senator from New Orleans.

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Grace Smith

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/louisiana-voucher-program-students-struggle-on-math-study-shows/feed/0Amendments, Waning Support Stall Voucher Bill in Tennesseehttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/amendments-waning-support-stall-voucher-bill-in-tennessee/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/amendments-waning-support-stall-voucher-bill-in-tennessee/#commentsFri, 12 Feb 2016 13:00:33 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=273458Tennessee Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) delayed a floor vote on his school voucher bill after up to 22 amendments were proposed before the bill was slated to be discussed on the House floor this week — and then he abandoned the effort altogether after acknowledging that he lacked the votes to support it. Dunn did […]

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Grace Smith

Tennessee Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) delayed a floor vote on his school voucher bill after up to 22 amendments were proposed before the bill was slated to be discussed on the House floor this week — and then he abandoned the effort altogether after acknowledging that he lacked the votes to support it.

Dunn did not disclose the specifics of the initial revisions, but said:

“Some are serious and some are silly. Some are to make a point. But I’m down here to make a difference.”

House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) opined that the changes would have improved a bad bill, but would not have made it acceptable for a vote, report Jason Gonzales and Joel Ebert for The Tennessean.

Fitzhugh, along with other opponents of the bill, did not want the bill to be delayed, but the legislation to was put on hold until Thursday when it was ultimately cancelled, writes Richard Locker of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Dunn counted 51 House members who agreed with his proposal.

Some opined that Dunn was right to ask for the delay since a number of the lawmakers who had supported the legislation were absent at the time. One absent representative was Rep. Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin) who had taken a two-week break from the legislature.

House Bill 1049 supported a program that offers government-funded scholarships that allow parents to pay for private school tuition. Students who are eligible for the benefit would have to be receiving free or reduced lunches and attend or be zoned for a school in the bottom 5% of schools in the state.

There was a limit to the number of students who could apply, but the bill called for an expansion to 20,000 vouchers in the future. Any vouchers not used would be given to students who live in a district where at least a single school is in the bottom 5% of schools. According to Dunn, students who receive vouchers must be at-risk.

The Tennessee Federation for Children and the Tennessee Parents/Teachers Putting Students First, along with other pro-voucher groups, have donated over $131,000 to members of the General Assembly in the last few months, with the most money going to House lawmakers.

Anti-voucher groups, including Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence, spent many hours lobbying against the bill. Other organizations held rallies statewide to protest the measure.

State Rep. Johnny Shaw (D-Bolivar) stated that he was against the bill. He has said he feels the voucher idea could damage the public school system.

“I think in the long run we’re putting burdens, future if not present burdens on the public school system and for that reason I’m not sold on the vouchers,” said Representative Shaw.

Shaw added that his constituency wanted him to vote against the bill based on conversations he has had with the people in his district, and that was what he would do.

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has been supportive of the voucher system for years, says WBBJ-TV News.

The program would be funded from the state budget and also from private schools that have agreed to be involved in the scholarship funding. Students who take part in the voucher program would be required to take state standardized tests to assess the program’s viability.

Dunn’s bill is an effort to allow public money to be spent by low-income parents whose children are attending schools that are in the bottom 5%, which would facilitate moving their children to private schools, including religious schools, writes the Times Free Press’ Andy Sher.

Sher reports that Rep. Durham’s leave of absence was a time for him to seek “assistance from professional and pastoral counselors” because of complaints from Capitol Hill workers that he sent unrequested text messages to them and, in some cases, asked for inappropriate pictures.

Dunn shared with his fellow legislators that he wanted the bill to apply only to Tennessee’s four largest counties, which are Shelby, Davidson, Knox, and Hamilton. But he added that he wanted to create a version that could pass, writes Erik Schelzig of the Associated Press.

When the time came Thursday to vote on the bill, Dunn said that he didn’t want to waste time debating a bill on the floor when it did not have the votes to pass.

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Grace Smith

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/amendments-waning-support-stall-voucher-bill-in-tennessee/feed/0Investigation of Milwaukee’s Voucher Program Comes to a Closehttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/investigation-of-milwaukees-voucher-program-comes-to-a-close/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/investigation-of-milwaukees-voucher-program-comes-to-a-close/#commentsTue, 05 Jan 2016 20:00:42 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=271522A long-term investigation into the Milwaukee private school voucher program has finally been closed by the US Department of Justice. The initial claim was that the program discriminated against students with disabilities, but no significant examples of wrongdoing were found, writes Erin Richards of the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. The Justice Department quietly sent a letter to […]

The Justice Department quietly sent a letter to the Wisconsin Department of Instruction in late December explaining that no further action would be necessary. Changes were requested two years ago by the Department, asking the DPI to make available certain information concerning the voucher program, but the DPI could not follow through on these directives because sharing the data was prohibited by state law.

According to the letter, the Justice Department can investigate any future complaints should they arise. Managing attorney Monica Murphy said the organization Disability Rights Wisconsin, one of the groups that brought the 2011 complaint, may pursue individual actions for the families involved.

School voucher advocates felt the move was politically motivated to undermine the private, often religious, schools in the state that receive public funding.

“Finally, after four years of a systematic, legally dubious investigation, there will be closure without any finding of discrimination in the school choice program,” said Jim Bender, president of the advocacy group School Choice Wisconsin.

Although private schools that are connected to the Milwaukee voucher program must accept students with disabilities, private institutions are not bound to offer the same special education services or physical accommodations that federal law requires of public schools. Voucher schools receive less funding than public schools for providing special education availability.

Gov. Scott Walker signed a law that allowed other private schools across the state to offer vouchers, and the 2015-2017 state budget has created a voucher program for students with special needs which would award them about $12,000 per year to attend private school in the 2016-2017 school year.

The information requested by the Justice Department, which the private schools were not mandated to provide, was the number of students with disabilities who were enrolled in each school and their grade level and disability for the 2013-2014 school year. No consequences followed the withholding of the data by the voucher schools.

The DPI created a new online form as a vehicle for parents to submit any discrimination complaints about voucher schools, but as of November there have been no complaints, according to CJ Szafir, vice president for policy and deputy counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Szafir’s conservative law firm has regularly requested status reports on the investigation from the DPI.

“Part of the benefit of school choice is that parents get to decide where to send their children,” Szafir said. “Perhaps they don’t want to get under the (federal disability) laws, so they go to private schools to educate their kids with disabilities in a different manner than what they’d get in the public schools.”

Private schools that receive public monies by way of tuition payments for qualifying students are known as voucher schools. During the 2014-2015 school year, 26,930 Milwaukee students attended one of the 113 private schools by using a voucher.

The Milwaukee program began in 1990 and officially is known as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. It is the longest-running urban voucher school program in the nation.

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Grace Smith

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/investigation-of-milwaukees-voucher-program-comes-to-a-close/feed/0Colorado Voucher Program Ruled Unconstitutionalhttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/colorado-voucher-program-ruled-unconstitutional/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/colorado-voucher-program-ruled-unconstitutional/#commentsFri, 03 Jul 2015 16:00:27 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=262018The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that a voucher program in the third-largest school district in the state is unconstitutional because the program offers public funding to religious schools. The new ruling reversed a previous decision by a state appeals court that allowed the Douglas County School District from implementing the Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, which […]

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Kristin Decarr

The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that a voucher program in the third-largest school district in the state is unconstitutional because the program offers public funding to religious schools.

The new ruling reversed a previous decision by a state appeals court that allowed the Douglas County School District from implementing the Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, which offered families the opportunity to use taxpayer dollars to pay for private schooling, writes Emma Brown for The Washington Post. In addition, school districts across the state will no longer be able to create similar voucher programs.

The program provided 500 scholarships of around $4,570 each. Families could have used the funds for any of 23 approved “private school partners” in the district, including 16 religious options.

The decision came as a shock to school choice advocates, and those looking for reform in public education in the state, as a reversal of a move that allowed families to make use of tax dollars and choose the type of schooling that would best fit their children.

However, the largest teachers union looked at the ruling as a victory.

“We’re incredibly gratified that the state’s Supreme Court recognized that public dollars should stay in public schools,” said Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association.

School officials from the district said there is a plan to appeal the ruling directly to the United States Supreme Court in the hopes of ending laws, not only in Colorado but in every state, that prohibit using public money for religious schooling.

Meanwhile, a number of states across the country are looking to implement programs that would allow families to use public funding for private school tuition. The American Federation for Children reports 46 such programs in 23 states and Washington, DC. The programs including tax credit scholarships, which allow private individuals or companies to earn tax credits in return for donating to scholarship funds, as well as education savings accounts that allow families to use tax dollars to pay for a number of educational services such as tutors, private schooling or home school materials.

Such vouchers were challenged as soon as they were approved in Colorado, which put a stop to the program and allowed the lawsuit to proceed through the court system. Civil liberties groups said the recent ruling placed a line between public money and private faith, writes Jack Healy for The New York Times.

“Parents are free to send their children to private religious schools if they wish, but the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed today that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for it,” read a statement by Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which represented some of the challengers.

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Kristin Decarr

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/colorado-voucher-program-ruled-unconstitutional/feed/0Report Says Indiana School Choice Vouchers Ineffective, Harmfulhttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/report-says-indiana-school-choice-vouchers-ineffective-harmful/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/report-says-indiana-school-choice-vouchers-ineffective-harmful/#commentsWed, 22 Apr 2015 17:00:40 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=258490A new report released from the Indiana Center for Tax and Budget Accountability determined that students in the state who use vouchers to attend private schools do not have any academic advantage over those students who attend public schools. Based on the evidence, it is possible that the voucher program may in fact hinder student achievement while […]

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Kristin Decarr

A new report released from the Indiana Center for Tax and Budget Accountability determined that students in the state who use vouchers to attend private schools do not have any academic advantage over those students who attend public schools.

Based on the evidence, it is possible that the voucher program may in fact hinder student achievement while at the same time hurting the entire education system.

The report, Analysis of Indiana School Choice Scholarship Program, took an in-depth look at the results of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., and federal research concerning charter and private schools. None of this suggested that students who participate in a voucher program did better academically than students who attended public schools.

As the voucher program in Indiana was only enacted in 2011, not enough data has been collected as of yet to determine how it has affected students in the state directly.

A study commissioned by former President George W. Bush, which controlled for school type and student demographics, discovered that, on average, children who attend traditional K-12 public schools perform better than students at both charter and private religious schools.

The authors suggest that state lawmakers should therefore not put any additional funding into such programs, which they argue will likely take money away from the state’s public education system to benefit lower performing private schools. They feel that doing so could end up hurting student achievement in the state over time.

In addition, it was discovered that the most successful nations have increased student achievement by reforming the overall education system instead of focusing on reforms that pertain to competition and choice. The report says that nations that have focused on competition in education have, for the most part, not been able to achieve an increase in student achievement.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, the state put $115 million into its voucher program for the 2014-15 school year. The authors suggest that that funding would have been better spent on reforms to the public school system, rather than being used to subsidize students attending private schools.

They go on to say that because legislation in the state does not allow for the regulation of “curriculum content” at private schools that take vouchers, taxpayer money could go toward an education of unknown quality.

The authors add that vouchers could possibly lead to an increased racial stratification in the public school system, as white children who used vouchers in the 2014-15 school year exceeded the next racial group by over 44 percentage points.

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Kristin Decarr

]]>http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/report-says-indiana-school-choice-vouchers-ineffective-harmful/feed/0Mississippi’s Bryant Expected to Sign Special Ed Voucher Billhttp://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/mississippis-bryant-expected-to-sign-special-ed-voucher-bill/
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/mississippis-bryant-expected-to-sign-special-ed-voucher-bill/#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 19:00:22 +0000http://www.educationnews.org/?p=257180Mississippi Senators voted 30-18 to pass Senate Bill 2695, which allows $6,500 per year in education vouchers for up to 500 students for the first year in place. Each year thereafter, 500 additional students could receive a voucher until the program reaches 2,500 students. Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press says the money could be used for […]

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Grace Smith

Mississippi Senators voted 30-18 to pass Senate Bill 2695, which allows $6,500 per year in education vouchers for up to 500 students for the first year in place. Each year thereafter, 500 additional students could receive a voucher until the program reaches 2,500 students. Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press says the money could be used for tutoring, therapy, or private school tuition.

Some Mississippi legislators are against using tax dollars to pay for private education. Supporters believe that the vouchers/scholarships would give hope to students whose needs are not being met by the public schools they attend. Those against the bill say the number of children who will be helped by the vouchers is just a few of the 66,500 special needs children who attend Mississippi’s public schools.

Even Bryant said that lawmakers should try to improve services for all special-needs students, not just for the small number who will receive vouchers. The bill has been held for a another possible round of debate, according to Sen. John Hohm (D-Jackson), but opponents will likely allow the bill to go to Governor Phil Bryant, who plans to approve it.

“Special needs students deserve the opportunity to succeed, and this bill gives parents the power to provide additional resources to help their children obtain the education and support they need,” Bryant said in a news release.

The biggest piece of an overall spending plan for Mississippi was put into place last week by Bryant when he signed a $2.5 billion budget for elementary and secondary schools. This occurred, according to the Associated Press, on the same day that the Joint Legislative Budget Committee met and increased the estimates of spending for programs like prisons, universities, and Medicaid. The state economist, the director of the state Department of Revenue and the state fiscal officer evaluated employment rates and collections of sales taxes and individual and corporate income taxes and found that the state’s economy is improving and tax collections are increasing. The state-funded portion of the budget will be $6 billion for this year and next.

In order to qualify for this program, students must have an active Individualized Education Program within the last 18 months from the date of enrollment to the program. The students who come to register first will fill the first 250 openings. The 250 slots left will be filled by means of a lottery.

“I personally don’t think it’s constitutional,” said Mississippi state Rep. Jeramey Anderson (D-Moss Point). “You’re taking public money and putting it into the hands of citizens. You’re really allowing private schools to dip into a public fund.”

Dick Komer, senior attorney for Institute for Justice, disagrees, because “these types of programs are intended to benefit the families and are not intended to benefit the schools.” The Institute for Justice is a legal group that was involved with writing Senate Bill 2695.